I must be getting fairly disaffected because as a liberal myself, I frankly don't mind the senate appointments. Yea they're crass and clearly partisan, but truly... put yourself in his shoes, if you don't respect the senate, don't believe it should be around, why not appoint blatant hacks and make a mockery of it?

I'm left wondering after these last few days, where the hell is Ignatieff and the liberals? Now that Doer has been appointed Ambassador to the US, Harper comes out looking squeaky clean, the NDP gets a boost. Ignatieff is still quiet.

Tomm finds liberal irony in Harper being the PM that has had more patronage appointments than any other PM in Canadian history? That's dyed in the wool conservatism without reality Tomm. Its more ironic that Steve said he'd never do anything like this and then created more patronage appointments than anyone else. What's sad is that Conservative supporters are such apologists they cant see their own hypocrisy.

There is a point, however, in questioning why our government is spending so much time and effort on senate reform when it is apparently not that important to Canadians (OK, they are not making any real effort, but you get my point).

As I said elsewhere, my theory is that any movement on senate "reform" is really a fundraising tactic. If Harper wanted real reform he would put forward a real reform package.

although I'm not entirely sure... correct me if I'm wrong. But don't the conservatives think that any senate reform package would fail simply because the senate would vote against it? So he needs to appoint enough of his loyalists before he puts through the legislation?